Effect of COVID-19 vaccines for the treatment of people with post-COVID-19 condition: a rapid review [version 2; peer review: 1 not approved]

Background: Vaccination for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has demonstrated reduced risk of hospitalisation and death against more recent variants of COVID-19. Some studies suggested improvements in patients with post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) following vaccination. We systematically explored available evidence on the effect of COVID-19 vaccines on the treatment of people with PCC.

Methods: We conducted a rapid review of the literature following systematic approaches. We searched Medline (OVID), EMBASE (Elsevier), ClinicalTrials.gov, and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) for randomised trials, non-randomised trials, controlled before-after studies, and interrupted time-series studies of the effect of COVID-19 vaccines for treating people with PCC. Two independent review authors screened citations. Two review authors extracted data independently. We had planned to assess the risk of bias and use the GRADE approach (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) to assess the certainty of evidence if there were completed studies.

Results: We identified two ongoing randomised controlled trials. Both trials examine the effectiveness of therapeutic vaccines on PCC. The anticipated completion date of the CIMAvax-EGFA trial is January 2023, and the completion date of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine trial is not stated.

Conclusions: There is currently an absence of high‐quality evidence evaluating the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines for treating people with post-COVID-19 condition. The absence of published studies and only two ongoing trials highlight the need for additional studies on the effectiveness of vaccines for PCC. We recommend that researchers consider PCC as per the definition provided by the World Health Organization and use the available core outcome set for PCC in deciding which outcomes to measure and report in the trials.

PROPSERO registration: CRD42022330821 (20/06/2022)